


Just Like An Action Movie

by Neverever



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Communication Failure, Dating, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season 1 Compliant, Steve Whump, Tony Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Tony's armor malfunctions, then he argues with Steve. But the Avengejet crashes in the Savage Land. Steve is badly injured and things get worse from there.





	Just Like An Action Movie

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art For - Just Like An Action Movie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715692) by [Dophne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dophne/pseuds/Dophne). 



> Written for the Captain America-Iron Man Reverse Big Bang 2018. 
> 
> I was very fortunate to work with Dophne did some really awesome inspirational [art](https://78.media.tumblr.com/30acf5049ab0ca197a4b9300043ee0fe/tumblr_p91bmvNwWH1vvcpzqo1_540.png) \-- I thank them so much for the wonderful art and their patience and enthusiasm. I hope that the story matches the art!
> 
> Big thanks to armsplutonic for the beta work.

As far as Steve was concerned, nothing had gone right that day starting with the burnt toast at breakfast. It all went downhill after that. 

The team had barely recovered from a long, miserable mission the day before involving a complex gambit by Dr. Doom over something that Steve still hadn’t gotten his head around. He needed to debrief the team at some point before everyone forgot what happened. And Steve had a long day ahead of him with a meeting with Fury and his people and another meeting with Fury and local law enforcement and a figure drawing class in the late afternoon. At least he had plans that evening he was looking forward to.

Steve got lost in his thoughts and plans and Tony and he never noticed that his toast was burning. Clint cheerfully reached over to pop the burnt slices out of the toaster.

“Got to be careful with this one, Cap,” Clint said. “Something went wrong with the toaster.”

“And Tony hasn’t done anything to it?” Steve asked. Tony must really be off his game if he hadn’t zeroed in on the broken toaster.

“I haven’t done anything to what?” Tony asked breezily as he swept into the kitchen. He already had a cup of coffee in one hand, goggles pushed up on his head and grease spots all over his face and arms.

“The toaster,” Clint said. 

“Yeah, I’ll get to it later.” Tony rummaged through a cabinet. “Where did the protein bars go?”

“I could scramble you some eggs, Tony,” Steve offered.

“Don’t have time for that, Cap. I’ve got a thousand and one armor problems and no time to solve them.”

“When did you want to leave for the exhibit?” Steve asked. 

“Exhibit?” With confusion written all over his face, Tony turned to Steve. “What exhibit?”

Steve said, “The one at the Historical Society -- about 20s New York.” Tony continued to look blankly at Steve. Steve bit his lip and had a sinking feeling in his stomach. “We talked about it last week? The opening? Dinner?”

“I just don’t remember any of it, Steve,” Tony replied with a shrug. “I’ll have to take a raincheck. Doom did something horribly wrong to the armor and I need to either fix it or manufacture a new one.” He patted Steve on the shoulder. “Or else I’m grounded next time we’re called out.”

Steve swallowed his disappointment. Guess he’d been counting on time with Tony too much. “Sure, Tony.”

“Woah, did anyone notice the weather report for today?” Clint asked. “Good thing I don’t have to go out in that.”

Now Steve could hear the miserable sound of sleet hitting the kitchen windows. He wasn’t keen on going out on a skycycle in that weather. He had to go to the helicarrier first and then to City Hall for the second meeting.

By the time he returned to the Tower mid-afternoon, Steve was cold, bored to the bone, chafing in the uniform and disappointed that his drawing class had been cancelled due to the end-of-winter storm pounding the city. After taking a hot shower and making a clothing change, he was overjoyed to see the large pile of delivery pizzas in the kitchen.

“Clint and I are going to watch a movie. Want to hang?” Sam said as he grabbed a plate.

“Is Tony around?”

“Haven’t seen him in hours.”

Steve had a plate of warm slices, a nice craft beer on the side and a comfortable seat on the leather couch. All while pointedly trying to ignore that feeling of vast disappointment that Tony wasn’t there. It wasn’t such a bad thing that they didn’t go to the exhibit considering the sleet storm.. But the fact that Tony forgot and didn’t seem upset about forgetting nagged at Steve.

Meanwhile Clint and Sam were bargaining over which movie to watch and Natasha was curled up with a book. That’s when Tony called. JARVIS patched in the call.

“Hey, could someone come and pick me up?” Tony asked over the tower comms. “I, um, crashed in Florida.”

“What?!” Steve was annoyed. Correction, more than you-used-up-all-the-coffee annoyed, but a shade less than punch-him-in-the-face angry with Tony. “What are you doing in Florida?”

“Eh. Test run that went bad.”

He balled up his napkin and tossed it on the coffee table and then jumped to his feet. Scowling, he replied, “I’m on my way, Tony, give me a couple of hours.”

Natasha tapped his arm. “You don’t have to go alone, Steve, or at all. Someone else --”

He threw up his hands. “No, no, I’ll go get Tony.”

Throwing the switches on the Avengejet, Steve set course for a spot outside Orlando where Tony had supposedly landed. Tony was a big pain in the ass today. If he was having problems with the suit, why the hell did he decide to take it out for a flight? And then call in like no one had anything better to do than to pick him up from wherever he crashed. People could have had plans. Like Steve. Steve had plans. Except that Tony forgot all about their plans.

Tony was fiddling with a gauntlet as he sat at a picnic table at a highway rest stop. “Glad you could make it, Cap,” he said jauntily.

Steve only grunted in response as they loaded up the armor. He was glad he had put on the uniform before heading out.

“Don’t know what went wrong,” Tony continued as Steve sat down in the pilot seat. “Everything suddenly went on the fritz for no good reason. I had to rig up something to get in touch with the team.”

“Oh.” Stone-faced, Steve set the flight plan for back to the Tower.

Leaning back in the seat next to Steve, Tony stroked his chin. “It feels likes an EMP -- it’s possible, won’t know for sure until I can run diagnostics.” Tony frowned. “It was probably not an EMP -- an EMP wouldn’t have wiped out the suit an hour or two after the fight. Doom did something to the suit -- man, I have no idea what that fight was about yesterday. At all.” He rummaged around. “Have you seen any paper around here?”

“No.” Steve barely glanced at Tony.

Tony explored around the seat with a foot. “There’s usually something around. Don’t you have something in your pockets?” He shrugged. “Anyway, I fixed most of what I thought was wrong with the suit. Can’t wait to get back to the workshop -- thinking about it, when I fixed the HUD software --”

Steve was not in a mood to hear the intricate details of Tony’s suit repair. He hunkered down in his seat. He could have been home in the Tower eating pizza right now. Of course that wasn’t as good as his original plan of going out tonight. Maybe they wouldn’t have made it to the exhibit, but dinner out would have been fine. Dinner out somewhere warm where he and Tony had all the time in the world to talk. Steve would have made an effort to go out in the sleet if it meant spending time with Tony. Who apparently didn’t want to spend time with Steve.

“Are you listening to me?” Tony asked, visibly annoyed that Steve was ignoring him.

“Suit’s broken, need to fix it. That’s what you were saying.”

“Noooo. I was asking you what you thought Doom was trying to do yesterday with that attack on Central Park.”

Steve didn’t want to talk about Doom either. Actually he didn’t want to talk to Tony. Maybe another time this would have been great that it was just the two of them in the Avengejet. Tony had seen the exhibit and pointed it out to Steve. He couldn’t have misread that Tony wanted to go to it with him. Steve had thought about the exhibit for the past week, making plans about where they might go to eat, he’d even considered what he’d wear. The blue shirt, the one he was wearing when he thought he’d seen Tony’s eyes linger on him.

“You’re brooding,” Tony accused. 

“We’re flying into a storm. I have to pay attention.”

“Right.” Tony tapped his fingers on his armrest. “Sure, you aren’t brooding. If you didn’t want to pick me up because of a little rain, you should have sent Clint. Clint would have been nice. He probably has a paper arrow.”

“It’s a sleet and ice storm,” Steve snapped. “Not rain. Did you even look at the weather before you took off?”

“Geez, Steve. I don’t know -- I’ve only been flying in the suit for years. I know about checking the weather.”

“Then you’d know about the storm. Or you don’t know because --”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Or what? Were you really going to say that my head was up my ass? When I’ve been trying to solve the Dr. Doom problem that you gladly left in my lap.”

“I didn’t ask you to solve it alone,” Steve replied in a raised voice. “The team --”

“Is doing crapola about it,” Tony shouted back.

“The world doesn’t revolve around your armor, Tony.”

“The armor is a symptom!!! If Doom did something to the armor, what else did he do? How dense can you be?! This could the tip of the iceberg.”

“It’s a team issue. If it’s so important, then why didn’t you call in the team? No, you had to do it alone like the rest of us are just decorations.”

“If you’re a decoration, Cap, I’d have bought a happier one.”

The Avengejet lurched downwards. Steve whipped his head back to the control panel. He grabbed and pushed and pulled on the throttle, buttons, and the control wheel desperately trying to get control over the jet back.

Tony said. “Wait -- we’re not heading to New York.” He pulled up a holoscreen. 

Steve pushed a couple of non-responsive buttons. “The Avengejet is speeding up. I can’t stop.”

“We’re way past Cuba -- Venezuela --”

“Who’s controlling the Avengejet?”

“What the hell --” Tony muttered as Steve tried to get control of the quinjet. He tapped furiously at the screens. “This -- it’s like what happened to my suit.”

“That was?”

“I told you --” Tony bit his tongue. “My best guess right now is that Doom inserted some type of malware that is activated under certain conditions. But I’d assumed that the malware was either collecting data or passwords -- credit cards -- Fury’s eyepatch hoard --”

Steve glanced over at the map on Tony’s holoscreen. “Looks like we’re heading straight to the Savage Land.”

“No. No. We can’t.”

Not only was the Avengejet flying fast, it was also dropping in altitude. Steve drew a deep breath. They were going to crash at this rate. “Tony, you should get in the suit.”

“I can’t contact the team or anyone,” Tony said quietly. 

“Suit. Now.” Tony could survive the crash in a broken suit. Steve would have to take his chances.

Steve took a deep breath as he considered his options for crashing. It was already late afternoon and the ground was rushing up to meet the jet. He’d prefer to have a controlled crash landing in that wide open green space. But he didn’t like the look of the low building to the right of the jet. The Avengejet hurtled wildly towards the edge of the rainforest. Steve wrestled with the jet to maintain the sliver of control he had over it. 

“Steve --” Tony said somewhere behind him. 

His finger automatically punched the eject button. Tony was flung out of the jet. Steve hoped he had enough control of the suit to get clear of the crash.

The bottom of the jet scraped treetops. Then it shuddered and pitched sharply to one side, crashing through trees. Steve was tossed violently side to side in his seat as the wings sliced through trunks and then the ground. His last thought was about Tony floating in the sky above the Avengejet and how pretty his armor would be in the late afternoon sunlight.

~~~~~

Tony made a controlled landing a few feet away from the jet. The suit couldn’t get back to New York under its own power, but it was good enough to protect Tony from crashing. Steve had been right.

Steve. 

Pulling off the helmet, Tony saw the Avengejet crumpled against a broken tree. One wing nearly ripped off, a hole in the side, a lot of hissing and snapping as the wreckage settled. Tony carefully picked his way through the scattered debris and walked through the hole in the side. 

“Steve? Cap?” he asked. 

Nothing. Except for the cracking of metal and carbon fiber under his feet. The interior started off dimly lit and was getting even darker now that the sun was setting. He fished a flashlight out the wreckage for light.

The first wave of guilt hit him. Tony was going to be known as the man who killed Captain America. That’s how the world was going to remember him. He could see the obituary already. “Tony Stark couldn’t fix his armor; Captain America died as a result.”

His blood ran cold. Steve couldn’t be dead. Not like this.

Tony had to push aside some of the broken exterior metal panels and framing to get access to the cockpit. He lifted the flashlight. No Steve. He took his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair. First he forgot his plans with Steve, then the armor malfunctioned, next the Avengejet and he not only killed Steve, he also lost him. Tony was batting a thousand today.

But, wait, the top of the cockpit had collapsed. Tony picked up the bits and pieces of the Avengejet to uncover Steve pinned under the wreckage. He had been tossed out of the pilot’s seat and thrown across the cabin.

“Steve?” Tony asked gently. He knelt down. Steve’s body was mostly covered by a pile of twisted metal, his head partially stuck under the pile but one arm completely free. Tony took off a gauntlet and carefully touched Steve’s clammy wrist. He could feel a thready pulse. 

Tony breathed out a sigh of relief from the depths of his soul. Steve was alive.

He sat back on his heels. He found a spot to wedge the flashlight to shine light on Steve. He didn’t like the lack of color in Steve’s face or his shallow breathing. “Come on, Steve.”

All he got was a groan in response. Tony reached out and brushed hair off Steve’s face and forehead. Oh, this was bad. Real bad.

Steve, um, just didn’t get hurt like this. Tony was more used to Steve bouncing back quickly from a crash or a blow. Not this. Tony was at a complete loss for what to do. He gently tapped Steve’s shoulder again. “Steve?”

Steve groaned again, but then opened his eyes. Unfocused and dazed but alive. “Tonnnnyyyy,” he slurred.

“Shhh, Steve. Is everything attached or --?” Tony fervently hoped that Steve wasn’t impaled under all that debris.

Steve closed his eyes as he took inventory. “Maybe. Feels like it. Head hurts.”

“Can you move?” 

“A little.”

“Okay. Okay.”

“Don’t panic, Tony,” Steve urged. “Are you okay?”

“Not panicking. I don’t know about lifting that wreckage --” Because Steve could be hurt a lot more than either of them knew. His mind prompted a long long list of everything that could have gone wrong or was already wrong.

“You need to move it,” Steve said firmly. “But first, are you okay?”

“But we don’t know if it will get worse if I move anything --”

“Tony. Breathe. Are you injured?”

“Everything’s working.”

“Okay. That’s good.” Steve attempted to smile and Tony couldn’t handle how Steve was trying to be cheerful in this beyond shitty situation. “It’s going to be worse if you don’t lift the wreckage. If there’s anything in my body, I’ll heal around it.”

Stricken at the thought of Steve in even more pain, Tony nodded grimly. He stood and studied the twisted pile of metal to figure out where to start. He lifted and removed one panel. But when he moved the next piece, Steve screamed. Tony dropped it immediately. “Okay, Steve, it’s okay, okay.” The sound of Steve screaming was going to haunt his nightmares forever.

“Keep working, Tony,” Steve urged. 

“I’m hurting you.” Damn it, of all the people on the team, Tony sure knew how awful it felt when a piece of metal poked unforgivingly into skin.

“There’s no way you can avoid that. You can do this.”

“Right.”

Tony forced himself to remove the rest of the wreckage as Steve grimaced and screwed up his eyes in pain. Finally he finished the job. He lifted the flashlight to see where Steve was injured. He was covered in blood but appeared intact, even if his left leg stuck out in a disturbingly unnatural angle. “Steve --”

“You need to make a fire now, Tony.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“It can still get cold at night in the Savage Land and I don’t know how long it will take you to find wood and start a fire. We need one.”

“Steve --”

“There -- there should be a blanket around here somewhere. And a magnesium stick -- there should be one in one of the pockets on my belt.”

Tony had imagined feeling up Steve in far far different circumstances than these. He gingerly patted around Steve’s utility belt until he found the stick. “Huh. Guess this isn’t all that much of a surprise. I don’t know what you keep in that belt --”

There was a crack behind them. Tony whipped around ready to unibeam something, anything. But it was a couple of branches falling into the Avengejet. He wasn’t going to be helpful if he was going to get jumpy around every little noise.

“We might have landed near Justin Hammer’s base, the one we were in the last time we were here. It looked occupied,” Steve said.

“Great. I’m not walking into that base to ask for help.” 

“We need to get wood first, need fire. Before we crashed, the Avengejet should have sent a distress call to the team.”

“Ah, Steve, I’m not sure about that. Whatever malware Doom infected our systems with -- it might have knocked out the automatic distress call.”

Steve nodded. “First, wood. Fire. We’ll work on the other stuff after that.”

~~~~~

Steve lay there on the Avengejet floor, wandering in and out of sleep. He needed sleep, but pain from his injuries kept him from falling deeply asleep. At least he hadn’t been impaled, for one thing. He was battered, bruised and banged up. He probably had a severe concussion -- when he moved, the world around him swam. He was pretty sure that his left leg was broken. If he were back in civilization, he’d be in the hospital for a few days.

He’d have to teach Tony how to create a splint for his leg, after the fire lesson. Then there was the water and food problem.

He had immeasurably large wells of patience. But he had no sense of time and it felt like Tony had been gone for ages. Now he was worried. What if Tony didn’t come back? What if he fell or got captured by whoever was in that base. Steve was in no shape to rescue him.

He’d been badly injured before. One of those times had been when he crashed into the ice. This, this felt a lot like that. Dark, airplane wreckage, unable to move. 

He swallowed. He had to hold the fear back. 

They’d get out of this and back home soon. He knew that. When he closed his eyes, he felt like he was already in his bed in the Tower, annoyed that he’d overslept in the warm afternoon sunlight … Tony in one of his perfectly fitted suits sitting on one of his couches, ankle resting on knee and checking his phone. “How about dinner at that new fusion place?”

“Sure, Tony, any place with you,” Steve mumbled through cracked lips.

“Steve!”

Not the reaction he was expecting, but Steve liked the enthusiasm. “How about we go --”

“Steve,” Tony said, closer this time. “Wake up -- I’m back.”

He let out a deep breath. Tony’s voice. Best noise in the universe. “Still here,” he replied. 

“Good. Didn’t know if you got bored and went off to get dinner.” 

Steve tried to sit up, but still couldn’t manage it. And it hurt like hell to move. “Need to go outside -- can’t risk a fire in here.” Tony gently pushed him down.

“You were right -- we crash landed right outside Hammer’s old base. Looks like someone’s home -- the Cabal. I saw HYDRA patrolling the perimeter.”

“Your rock friends --”

“Honestly, Cap, they’re not going to get involved if the Cabal isn’t bothering them. Red Skull is smart enough to not take them on.”

“We can’t stay here -- I’m surprised no one came to investigate the wreckage.”

“We’re a distance away in the rainforest at night.” 

“Right. Rainforest.” Steve ran through his blurry mind all the survival tactics he’d learned about rainforests. Maybe they should risk a fire here until the morning. Shelter was going to be the hard part until the team came to rescue them. And water and food. What was in the Avengejet for food? Hulk usually packed away snacks ….

“Steve, I’m sorry, I failed you. We’re in big trouble because of the faulty armor and then the Avengejet --”

“Don’t. Not your fault. Let’s regroup. Did you find dry wood?”

Steve talked Tony through setting up a small fire with the magnesium stick. Not the safest thing in the wreckage but they couldn’t risk being found now by the Cabal. Tony rummaged through the back part of the Avengejet, scoring Hulk’s protein bars, some peanut butter-and-chocolate candy and a few six-packs of bottled water that survived the crash. 

Water, food, fire, shelter of a sorts. They’d survive the night. 

“Have you been able to reach anyone back home?”

“No,” Tony replied miserably. “The armor’s communications are fried and --” he waved at the destroyed Avengejet control panel -- “well, that’s useless.”

“Hmm, we’ll deal with that in the morning. You’ll figure something out.” He smiled at Tony. He had absolute faith that Tony would figure this all out.

“Steve?” Tony said.

He couldn’t stay awake. The sound of Tony’s beautiful voice echoed in his head and he looked up to see Tony in his swim shorts holding a drink with a little paper umbrella. He didn’t appreciate Tony’s legs nearly enough. “Want to go for a swim, Steve?” They were on a completely empty white sand beach under a hot, bright sun in a deep-blue sky. 

“What about sharks, Tony?”

“Uh, Steve, I think you got a concussion there, buddy.” 

“Sharks buy people cakes, they don’t cause concussions,” Steve replied confidently.

“Oh, god. We’re doomed.” Tony poked Steve. “Don’t fall asleep, please, please.”

“What?”

“You’ve got a concussion and if you can’t wake up --” Tony slumped a little. This was something he just wasn’t that good at, the medical stuff, the survival crap. Something teased in the back of his mind about concussion myths. Steve could sleep a little bit, but Tony would still need to check on him. “I’m going to stay up and wake you up even now and then, in case.”

“That sounds good,” Steve sleepily agreed.

~~~~~

Tony had planned to stay up. He’d even found a random collection of tools he could use to try to repair the suit. He did pretty well for a couple of hours But he fell asleep next to Steve. He cursed quietly when he noticed that the fire had burnt out and heard the splatter of rain on the wreckage and he felt keenly the lack of coffee. But he was convinced that when Steve woke up, he’d be back to being action Cap.

Except no. 

“I have a healing factor, Tony. I don’t heal immediately,” Steve said. “And I don’t grow back body parts.”

Tony gave Steve the last of the protein bars and another couple bottled waters. At least Steve looked better than last night -- less at death’s door, more vaguely pink. “We’ve got to do something about getting out of here.”

Steve struggled to sit up. “Where did the shield go?” He felt around the floor for the shield. Then fell back on the floor.

“What are we going to do if you can’t stand?”

“We can’t stay here unprotected. It’s morning. Someone is on their way here.”

“Right. Cabal.” Tony would need time to take inventory of the tech he could cannibalize for protection and to reach the team. How much time did they have? 

“Could you rig up some sort of hologram to hide the Avengejet? Or something to obscure our location?”

“They would have picked us up by now.”

“But they’re not here yet. And we are going to run out of food and water.”

“Too damn bad that I’m not the injured person here so you could go do the wilderness survival thing.”

Steve shook his head. “We’ve got time for you to cover the jet with fronds and leaves. You could do something about the GPS. That will keep us safe until I can walk and you find food.”

Tony turned his head to stare at Steve. “Is this opposite day?”

“All we have is each other.”

Tony’s heart clenched at that. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Wait -- what’s that?” He heard the distinct sound of a car motor.

Steve lowered his voice. “Two people. Get down. Stay hidden.”

He got down on the floor and wiggled around to block Steve. They’d have to go through Tony to get to him. The gauntlets still had to work. He whispered, “I can take out anyone --”

“No.”

“Why?” he hissed. 

“If you knock them out, we’ll have to figure out what to do with them. We’re not equipped for handling prisoners. They have co-workers -- whoever is in charge is going to send out another party to find out what happened to the first.”

Tony nodded. Steve had a point. He hadn’t located the Avengejet zip tie and rope supply yet and there was no convenient spot to stow captured goons. 

They waited. Tony’s breath stuck in his throat. He could hear faint voices outside the wreckage. And then the sound of metal and debris being moved around. His entire body tensed, ready for the HYDRA agents to find them any minute now. Footsteps came closer. Then stopped. 

“Piece of crap HammerTech. Life signs, then no life signs.” Sound of banging on the side of the Avengejet. “No, definitely nothing.”

The other HYDRA guy complained, “What, we came all the way out here in the fracking rain to find a wrecked jet? What a waste of time.”

“Let’s go back. I’m not picking through this for dead people -- one of those AIM creeps can comb through this junk.”

Steve put a hand on Tony’s shoulder while they waited for confirmation that the soldiers were gone. The car started up. “Sounds like they’re backing up,” Steve whispered. “They’re gone.”

Right, Steve’s super hearing. Tony rolled over to his side and got up on his knees. “We just had the best luck we’re ever going to get in our lives.”

Steve chuckled, lifting Tony’s spirits. “Not luck -- unmotivated, bad HYDRA agents. Red Skull would have made them come out last night if he was here. No one came last night or at dawn. That means that whoever is in charge isn’t competent at their job and the agents are worse.”

“Nice to know that incompetence and lack of motivation saved our asses.”

“For now. The crew that was here were the agents at the bottom of the ladder -- we can’t assume anything about the next crew out here. We should try to hide the Avengejet.”

“I’m assuming that by we, you mean I.”

Tony came back in two hours. He hadn’t done that much manual labor without the suit, in, well, ever. He was sore in spots he didn’t know could be sore. He was happy, though, with the fake signal beacon he’d rigged up -- it should draw attention away from the Avengejet.

“Okay, I’ve done the cover-the-wreck-with-sticks-and-foliage bit and now I’m working on the hope-the-HYDRA-agents-don’t-notice-us part. Boy, I hope this works.”

Steve was lying down, hand on chest, eyes closed again. He’d lost that touch of pink in his face he’d had earlier. Tony immediately dropped to his knees beside Steve. “Cap?”

“Need food, Tony. My body is working overtime. My left leg is broken and can’t put weight on it.”

Tony ran a hand through his hair. “We don’t -- I could try to blast something, I guess.”

Steve sighed. “Tony, okay. Neither of us can afford to spend energy on low-return activities. Hunting would be hard, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll kill anything big enough to satisfy both of us.” He swallowed thickly. “I can’t imagine you skinning anything to eat or cook it.”

“Well, if we had takeout --”

“We do.”

“Steve, that concussion --” 

“If you raid the Cabal base, you could get food and find communications equipment --”

“Not with a malfunctioning suit.”

“Or we could lure a HYDRA or AIM agent out here, hoping that they have food or water. Which is not likely.”

“Steve --” Tony shook his head and looked everywhere but Steve. 

“Tony, you can do this. You’re not helpless without the armor. What I need you to do is to take out one of the perimeter guards, put his uniform on, and do a run through the base for food and water supplies. Scout out communication devices.”

“I’ve never done an undercover mission by myself -- or punched someone out with my bare hands.”

“That you can improvise.”

“Steve. What part of I’ve never done an undercover mission by myself do you not understand?

“I believe in you, Tony. Do the local comms still work?”

“I could rig something.”

“I’ll talk you through it. I doubt that this is the main Cabal base --”

“We destroyed their submarine base on that last undercover mission we completely messed up --”

Tony reached out to cup Steve’s cheek in his hand. Steve closed his eyes, like he was drawing strength from Tony’s mere touch. “This is serious. We don’t have a margin for a single error.”

“We’ve had worse odds.”

Tony wanted to put his arms around Steve, protect him until he was better and back on his feet. They’d been in danger before with their lives on the line. This felt different to Tony. If it hadn’t been for the suit, or if he hadn’t been careless in that fight with Doom and he’d noticed the malware …

“Please, Tony, don’t blame yourself.”

“I’m not --”

“I can hear the gears turning in your head.” Steve smiled beatifically at Tony. 

Damn, Steve’s smile was dazzling and his eyes a mesmerizing deep blue. “I’m not up for the whole ‘you didn’t know what Doom was up to’ speech. Before you start that one.”

“Am I that predictable?”

Tony bit his tongue on a reflexive sarcastic response. He looked down at Steve and smiled ruefully. “I wish I hadn’t forgotten about the exhibit. It’s just, you know, Doom, that fight, nothing made sense. I couldn’t shake it out of my head.”

Steve nodded. “I understand. I’d been looking forward to the exhibit, well, going to the exhibit with you, that is.”

“We don’t get a lot of opportunities to spend time together doing fun stuff, with the superhero gig.”

A flash of sadness crossed Steve’s perfect face and Tony had the disconcerting feeling that he was letting Steve down again. 

“We should regroup,” Steve suggested. “We need food and water.”

“Need to send a distress call to the team. We have a unknown number of Cabal neighbors.” Tony put his hand on Steve’s chest. “Steve, you need to get home, get checked out.”

“Been worse.”

“Great. Let’s compare near-death experiences to see which one was worse. Preferably alive and back home.”

Steve grabbed Tony’s hand. “It’s a bad time to bring this up, but when we get home, we should --”

Tony blurted, “It’s about time we say we’re in love with each other! Near-death experience, bad injuries, and all that. Steve, I’ve loved you forever -- and we really should have gone to that exhibit. I’d been looking forward to it all week, it felt like a real date to me, and then Doom -- the superhero thing got in the way ….”

He stopped talking when he saw how stricken Steve looked. “That’s not what you were going to say, was it?” 

“I should show you how to fight without the suit, some basic punches, footwork.”

“Hmmmm.” Tony dropped his head. “Maybe we can just forget what I said. Chalk it up to adrenaline and deathbed confession stuff.”

Steve squeezed his hand. “No, I’m not going to forget it. I love you too, Tony. I just wish we’d been on a proper date when we got to say that.”

“You don’t count crashing the Avengejet into the Savage Land as a proper date? Take the guy out of the 40s and he doesn’t get future dating customs.”

Steve wheezed a little. “It hurts to laugh.”

“When we get back to New York, we’re going to do this right.”

“Not one of your fancy restaurants.”

Tony shook his head, remembering far too well the Per Se disaster. “We’ll go to the exhibit. Something like that.”

“We have to get out of here first.”

Tony got up. “I’m leaving the suit over there.” He pointed to the pile of nearly useless armor parts. “Wish me luck.”

~~~~~

Tony made the two-mile hike to the perimeter of the base. He’d found a backpack in the wreckage and packed a few handy tools. He wasn’t Steve, and he wasn’t going to punch his way through the base. He was working with his strengths. 

It took couple of minutes, but he found one of the circuit breaker boxes for the electric fence. He disabled it and cut the fence in the next second. Now he had to make his way to the actual base. He didn’t remember much about the base, given that he was fighting Hammer outside the main building the last time he was here.

He had already made the executive decision not to follow Steve’s suggestion of knocking out a guard and stealing the uniform. That was a Captain America thing. Tony went with a hoodie and lurking -- that was more his style. He evaded the guards running over to check the fence.

The main base building was a low, two-story affair. Tony had to give props to Justin Hammer for finding a way to build a suburban office building out in the Savage Land. He studied the entrance and whether or not there were guards stationed there. 

Like Steve predicted, the base didn’t have the polish or organization of other Cabal bases, although the Cabal didn’t have a patch on SHIELD operations. Tony easily slipped into the building without being noticed. 

Overall, things were going far far too well for him and that was spooking him out. He found the hallways suspiciously empty and hoped it was because there was only a skeleton crew at the outpost. First, he needed a computer to contact the team and then he’d go find food.

Computers were easily to find and even easier to break into. All Tony had to do was contact JARVIS, who’d find the team -- and there was Sam, just the guy he wanted to talk to. 

“Tony? Where are you?” Sam replied. “We’re in Venezuela trying to track the Avengejet -- ”

“The Savage Land -- I’m sending the coordinates. My suit malfunctioned and the Avengejet was diverted and crashed here. Thanks to Dr. Doom.”

“The fight the other day?”

“Doom messing with us. Steve and I need help fast. Steve is injured pretty badly and we’re near a Cabal base.”

“We’ll take off in fifteen minutes -- it’ll be a few hours before we get there.”

“Understood. Got to go.”

Tony was in the process of disabling the computer to erase all traces of contacting Sam when he heard a loud voice booming down the hallway. His heart sank. He’d know Red Skull anywhere. He sidled to the doorway to listen in.

“You failed to inspect the wreckage of an aircraft near our base?” shouted Red Skull.

“No one was alive, it was raining --”

“Pathetic excuses. How do you wretches know it wasn’t the Avengers baiting a trap? Hmmm? And why are you still standing there?”

A group of HYDRA agents stormed out of the meeting room. Tony followed as best he could -- they weren’t going to walk to the Avengejet. He could seriously use some EMP devices right now to stop them.

Steve was helpless, lying injured in the jet, and Tony couldn’t lose him, not now and not like this. Red Skull wouldn’t hesitate to destroy Steve if he could. 

Tony gritted his teeth. He had to get to the Avengejet before HYDRA did and his options were quickly disappearing. Especially when he watched through a side window two HYDRA agents peel off in a jeep.

~~~~~

Steve knew that he shouldn’t move too much or attempt to get up again. He wasn’t going to be able to put weight on his left leg and he must have wrenched his left shoulder too. 

Everything depended on Tony now to get them out of there. He had every possible belief and hope that Tony could do it. Tony was the cleverest and most intelligent person Steve knew. Even though Steve might be a bit biased in favor of his boyfriend. 

Boyfriend. 

The idea brought a smile to Steve’s face just thinking about it. They had a few dates already, but they hadn’t been moving fast, they’d only kissed a few times, even if he had been in love with Tony forever.

For all the warmth of knowing he was loved, Steve couldn’t escape the fact that his safety was totally dependent on the unknown decisions by a unknown number of people. He should think of some defense other than his fists and the shield or hiding in the wreckage.

He eyed the pile of armor Tony had left behind. Tony was nearly the same height and size as Steve, even if Steve weighed more because of muscle density. He could use parts of the armor as a splint for his leg and a support for his shoulder. 

It hurt like hell as he put on the greaves and the gauntlet. But the armor was surprisingly easy to wear and now Steve could walk. He tested the gauntlet but he couldn’t get it to fire. It would need to be tied into the arc reactor for the blast to work. 

Okay. He wasn’t in fighting shape and couldn’t use the gauntlet or the shield. Being able to move, though, was the best thing he had going. He slotted the shield on his back and looked around the remains of the Avengejet. He knew he shouldn’t stay standing as a wave of nausea and queasiness washed over him. But he felt equally uneasy about the lack of protection.

He did a double take at a sudden noise. Another branch falling? Or the Avengejet settling? He should check it out. Even if he could barely stand up.

~~~~~

Tony knew a couple of things: one, there was no way in hell he was going to beat that jeep to the Avengejet on foot; and, two, Steve was a goner if he didn’t.

He raced blindly ahead, trying to guess where the jeeps were parked. He’d give anything for a working suit or even just jet boots right now. The base wasn’t that large that he couldn’t -- there, right there, that’s where the jeeps were.

Hopping into one, he was grateful for being a mechanical genius because he knew how to hot wire the old car. The sudden roar of the engine got the attention of a couple of AIM agents. Tony didn’t care -- he had to save Steve. He sped off toward the Avengejet.

Pushing the jeep faster and faster, he bit his lip, hoping against hope, he’d get there in time to save Steve. Steve, who had to be far more injured than he’d let on. Lying there, vulnerable, the only way that Red Skull could capture him.

Ugh. Tony wasn’t going to let Steve down, no sirree, he wasn’t.

His heart sank for yet another time that day seeing two HYDRA jeeps not far from the Avengejet. He pulled off to the side, his head swimming with anger and fear and helplessness.

Steve. 

He’d have to watch them haul out Steve, and here he had nothing. He could almost hear Steve’s patented Inspirational Speech Number 50, telling Tony that he was smart and resourceful, and all he needed to do was regroup and he’d be able to rescue Steve. Hell, Tony had heard that speech enough times he nearly believed it himself.

But this was different. He’d always gone the extra mile for Steve, because it was Steve. This time, Steve was his air and his sky and the pulse of his arc reactor. And Steve had fallen into the hands of his absolute worst enemy, and all Tony had was a bag of tools and a team arriving in a few hours. Skull could do a number on Steve in that amount of time.

Tony gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. Skull would pay if he touched one hair on Steve’s head. Back to the base.

He was so focused on turning the jeep around quietly that he didn’t see Steve waving at him. Until he screamed as Steve jumped into the jeep. “Cripes, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“Good to see you too, Tony,” Steve said with a shit-eating grin. He tossed a duffel bag into the backseat.

Tony grabbed Steve and kissed him furiously. “I thought HYDRA got you.”

“Almost,” Steve confessed. “I got out of the Avengejet just before they saw me. I’ve been hiding in the underbrush. Then you got here.”

“Team won’t be here for another couple of hours, maybe more. Skull’s back at the base.”

“They know it’s the Avengejet and they think that the whole team is here,” Steve said. 

“What do we do now?”

“We go to the base --”

“And blow it up.” Tony hit the gas pedal. “Don’t let anyone tell you I don’t know how to show you a good time, babe.”

~~~~~

They snuck back into the base in the confusion of AIM and HYDRA agents all in a frenzy because the Avengers were just outside their base. “Looks like they’re already distracted, Steve. I don’t know what else we can do.”

Steve was eating bananas they had found in the kitchen. He looked a lot better, his eyes brighter and his skin rosier and he could move a bit without having to sit down. Tony had snagged a rolling office chair for him to keep him off his feet. But he was less than impressed with the coffee he made -- HYDRA and AIM were not putting their money into decent coffee supplies.

“Not enough of a distraction,” Steve replied. He appraised the crowd rushing about with a critical eye. “Skull won’t let this go on for much longer.”

“Sam says they’ll be here in an hour.” Tony had helped himself to a cell phone lying out on a desk. He’d send a better phone to the AIM agent, although he wasn’t sure yet about transferring the several photos of the last AIM company cookout. 

“Hmmm,” Steve pondered. He sat there, head in hand, contemplating their options. “We should blow the place up,” he finally said.

“What?” 

“The Cabal moved fast to retake this base as theirs, and it’s not a good idea for the Cabal to have a base in the Savage Land. Then there are your friends, the rock people -- they can’t be happy with this in their backyard.”

“Do you know how much explosives we’ll need?” Tony’s mind raced doing the calculations. Two-story building, not well-built given the Hammer connection, and Skull wasn’t likely to have reinforced the walls or anything. Hmmm …. 

“AIM is involved -- have you ever known them to have a base and not enough explosives?”

“Fair enough.” Admittedly, AIM’s go-to plans were usually blowing things up.

“We need to move fast,” Steve pointed out. “It’s quieting down.”

Tony nodded. They ducked into a small office. “Too bad HYDRA doesn’t believe in a company intranet or posting building plans online.”

“The explosion won’t be the only distraction -- the fire will help,” Steve said grimly.

Tony rapidly typed through the hacked computer. “I can’t believe that you were the one to suggest this.”

“I’m not happy about it,” Steve admitted. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt --”

“Done.” Tony tapped a couple of keys. “We’ll have alarms go off before the explosion.”

Steve agreed with Tony that they should set off the explosion in some unused lab space with outside windows on the east side of the building. The plan was relatively simple -- Steve would be installed on the rolling chair as a guard in the lab space while Tony nabbed a box of C4 from the warehouse. 

Running back to the lab with the box, Tony noticed that Red Skull had gotten control of the panicking HYDRA and AIM agents. He plastered himself against a hallway wall as a patrol marched past him through the adjoining hallway. The agents talked about heading out in the forest to force the Avengers out. Good. Better they were out there than in here, looking for Steve and Tony.

It didn’t take long to set up the C4 the way Tony wanted. Steve watched from the door. “See anyone?” Tony asked as he stood up and rubbed the dirt off his hands.

“No,” Steve replied worriedly.

“Come on. I’m done in here.” Tony had put on the other gauntlet and the right greave of the suit as backup. The rest of the armor was useless and would hold them back. He’d rigged the remainder of the armor to blow up with the explosives.

He grabbed the shield and pushed Steve down the hallway towards an exit. 

“Stop,” a HYDRA agent stationed at the exit commanded. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Neither are you,” Tony replied cheerfully. He attempted to throw the shield, which wobbled in the air and landed with a thud a few feet away from the agent. Steve rushed forward, launching himself at the agent and shoving him through the door. Tony scooped up the shield and ran after them.

Outside, Steve was bent over, elbows on knees. The agent struggled to his feet, and Tony nudged the guy to move. “Place is going to blow in a few minutes. You might want to get somewhere safe.”

He put his arm and shoulder under Steve to help him stand. Holding the shield in his right hand and supporting Steve’s unbelievably heavy body on his left, Tony got them up and walking away from the building. He heard the explosion go off several yards behind them, felt the heat from the fire on his back. They kept walking like they were movie stars swaggering their way out of an action scene. Which they kind of were. Life got unreal when you were an avenger.

Once they reached a safe distance, Tony looked back at the burning husk of the base. “I bet Clint has been wondering how they’re going to find us when they get here. They can’t miss us now.”

Still leaning hard on Tony, Steve flashed a brilliant smile at Tony. “No, they can’t.”

Tony had to kiss him again. Just in case Steve was sore or something. Maybe he’d make him feel better. Made Tony feel better at any rate, knowing Steve was safe.


End file.
